Whit Monday, 2008. Traditional British bank holiday weather – a woman walks under an umbrella near Blackfriars Bridge, London.
Photograph: David Levene for the Guardian

It’s a bank holiday weekend – again – so we are primed to expect bad weather. And it’s true that some late May bank holidays have been rather poor, weatherwise. Following a very harsh winter, May 1891 began quite promisingly, with fine, sunny weather across much of the country. By 11 May, a blocking anticyclone allowed temperatures to rise to a sweltering 27.2C. But the good weather did not last: that year the Whitsun holidays fell very early – on Bank Holiday Monday, 18 May, snow fell across much of Britain, with heavy falls from Norfolk to Yorkshire. Night frosts destroyed fruit and vegetable crops, while daily maximum temperatures struggled to reach an unseasonably chilly 8C. In Devon and Cornwall, there were hailstones the size of marbles.

In complete contrast, the later Whitsun bank holiday of 1944 (29 May) was the warmest and sunniest on record. Temperatures peaked at almost 33C (over 91F), the hottest day of the year, and the hottest May bank holiday ever. This gave rise to heavy storms and floods, especially in the Yorkshire town of Holmfirth. Of course, it couldn’t last. By early June, the weather had returned to its more familiar pattern of cool, damp westerlies, interspersed with the occasional sunny day – typical British summer weather!